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The Peacock Summer

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17

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Twenty years ago Helen Franklin did something she cannot forgive herself for, and she has spent every day since barricading herself against its memory. But her sheltered life is about to change. A strange manuscript has come into her possession. It is filled with testimonies from the darkest chapters of human history, which all record sightings of a tall, silent woman in black, with unblinking eyes and bleeding feet: Melmoth, the loneliest being in the world. Condemned to walk the Earth forever, she tries to beguile the guilty and lure them away for a lifetime wandering alongside her.

4 out of 5 stars

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3.5 out of 5 stars
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Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
8

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Secretly treasured memories of her eccentric grandmother’s Tuscan house are very special for Carrie Stowe; for not only do they recall the happy childhood summers before the Great War, they are her only escape from the suffocating routine of her life with Arthur, her repressive husband. When she unexpectedly inherits the house, Arthur, predictably, insists it be sold. But while disposing of the effects, Carrie is drawn to an enigmatic young man embarked on an ideological quest….

5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully told story

By
Alison G
on
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Summary

A compelling story of secrets, betrayals and the consequences of a long-ago summer from the best-selling author of Secrets of the Tides and The Shadow Year

'If she could reach back through the years and warn the person she once was, what would she say?...What would she say to the ghosts who now inhabit her days? So many of those she has loved are now nothing but dust and memory.'

At 26, Lillian feels trapped by life. Her marriage to Charles Oberon has not turned out the way she expected it would. To her it seems she is just another object captured within the walls of Cloudesley, her husband's beautiful manor house tucked away high in the Chiltern Hills. But, with a young step-son and a sister to care for, Lillian accepts there is no way out for her. Then Charles makes an arrangement with an enigmatic artist visiting their home and his presence will unbalance everything she thought she knew and understood.

Maggie Oberon ran from the hurt and resentment she caused. Half a world away, in Australia, it was easier to forget, to pretend she didn't care. But when her elderly grandmother, Lillian, falls ill she must head back to Cloudesley. Forced to face her past, Maggie fights to hold herself and her family's legacy together as she learns that all she thought was real, all that she held so close, was never as it seemed.